Oh, 2018, what a blissful and terrible nightmare dream you were. In January you took my nephew from us and really set the tone for what the year’s focus would be (loss). Massive fucking amounts of loss. Yet still – and this is proof of just how fucked up you were, 2018 – I am grateful. Humbled. Yeah, a little humiliated, too, but mostly? I’m filled with gratitude. You shattered me, but you lifted me up, too. You brought me so many remarkable experiences (thank you for those). In taking as much as you did, though, you broke me completely. For a long time, I thought you had broken me irreparably, but that is not that case (you knew that all along, didn’t you?). In my destruction I found the greatest strength I’ve ever known, and have finally – finally! – allowed myself to meet myself – and she is beautiful. Intelligent. Caring....

“The secret of life, though, is to fall seven times and to get up eight times.” –The Alchemist I’ve written about fitness before. Four years ago, almost to the day, I admitted that I loathed my body. That I hated what it looked like, and how I was complacent in my disdain – too afraid to do anything about how I was feeling. It took me a long time to realize that my complacency, and subsequent failure in achieving my “ideal body” wasn’t fear of getting fit, but that in getting fit I’d realize that the hatred I felt towards my body was a symptom of a bigger issue and a deeper fear, the truth of which wouldn’t fully surface until two years later in the summer of 2016. As women it’s easy for us to subconsciously place the solution to all of our problems upon our appearance. As if losing...

The funny thing about grief is that no one really explains it to us. Save for the Five Stages we are told we must falter and trip our way through, we don’t really know anything about what profound grief can and will do to or for us. It’s an experience and emotional endeavor that we can’t begin to fathom until after it has wholly enveloped us. We see it clearly once we’ve clawed ourselves out from under it. The asshole that is Grief cannot – and will not stand to – be fully understood until we have finally moved through it. In all of my wisdom and intelligence, it never occurred to me that grief doesn’t only show up when someone dies. I understand now the disastrous effects of my naïveté. As it turns out, grief cleverly meanders its way into our lives when we least expect. Grief, like joy or happiness...

This post isn’t a response to a Letter, the truth is I haven’t received one in ages. But it’s a story that’s all too common, and it’s finally time I share it. TW: Sexual Assault I was barely in middle school the first time it happened. I wasn’t even a teenager the first time a boy put his hands down my pants while I was asleep. I was at a sleepover with a friend from a former school, a girl I knew only briefly, but vetting your friends for possible pedophile brothers shouldn’t be a thing when you’re eleven (or ever). We fell asleep after watching movies and talking for what felt like hours. The night – and our vast and seemingly unending supply of energy – faded quickly. Becky sprawled across her dad’s favorite armchair as I settled into the soft folds of the family’s well-worn sofa. I remembered...